Tuesday, March 29, 2011

Spring Cain

Starting pitcher:
M.C. O'Connor

Matt Cain threw only 13-1/3 innings this spring, with 5-1/3 coming last night. It looked like he had good command of his fastball but maybe not all of his velocity. He used his change-up with two strikes and Krukow thinks we will see a lot more of that from him this season. My only concern would be his stamina--it seemed like he got a few pitches up in the zone at the end. It may be a few starts before he's at full strength since he had the abbreviated spring. One of the concerns we all heard about this off-season was the extra IP all the guys put in due to the 15 post-season games. Matt threw a career-high 223-1/3 in 2010 and added an extra 21-1/3 in the playoffs and Series. Good thing he is a big, strapping country boy and all of 26 years old. He's never missed time due to injury. Let's hope that continues! Sergio Romo looked good in the closer role. I also liked watching Brett Anderson (the Oakland starter) pitch. He has a devastating curveball and looks like an emerging star.

11 comments:

@Anon - no we cannot. I think a World Series Championship buried that meme. Yesterday, a home run by Huff, 2 rbi by Burrell, and another by Posey resulted in a 5.1 inning victory for Matt, and a loss for Anderson. I think the A's are going to have a good team this year. Their pitching was good last year, their hitting terrible. They have upgraded their hitting, and the rest of the division has not done much.

@Zo: Until he has more wins than losses in his career, I'm still gonna say it (or when he gets no run support). I'll keep the meme alive if it kills my social life (which I may or may not have right now).

@Ron: An internet meme is...Wikipedia gives a good definition: "The term "Internet meme" refers to a catchphrase or concept that spreads rapidly from person to person via the Internet, largely through Internet-based email, blogs, forums, Imageboards, social networking sites and instant messaging."

The meme that we are referring to is the one that Matt Cain needs to learn how to win. We all know that Matt is great, however, his lack of run support, pitching on the same team as Timmeh, and xFIP being his mortal enemy, make him look less amazing to people who don't know him like we know him.

Think of a meme as a unit of "cultural" inheritance, analogous to the gene in biology. There is even a field--mimetics. Whether the realm of beliefs and ideas ("culture") is amenable to such analysis, I cannot say. The word, however, is in common usage. And the notion that "bits" of cultural information get passed around like bits of DNA or somesuch is a popular one. Richard Dawkins coined the term. It suits the internet well, as it is all "bits" in this world.